Stuart was a white teacher who briefly taught in a Freedmen’s Bureau school in Houston in early 1866, before leaving town under a cloud of suspicion from his superiors at the Bureau for a variety of reasons detailed below.

In November 1865, Stuart wrote to the white rector of the Methodist Church in Houston declaring “the wish of the colored people, the owners of the church you now worship in, to establish a Sabbath School.” He receives a chilly retort from the Board of Trustees, James F. Dumble Secretary.¹ But that same month, the Telegraph reports that Stuart is now teaching in the Methodist church, to the reported frustration of Black teachers like William Warf who had already begun schools.²

His school was located in “the African Methodist church.”³

When Stuart’s school first opened in November 1865, the Black Methodist building would still have been on the lot of the collapsed white Methodist building on Texas Street.⁴ But his June 1866 report to the Bureau summarized progress made “for the month my school has been opened since the removal of the church,” likely a reference to the Black Methodists’ purchase of their new lot bounded by Travis, Bell, Clay, and Milam, in February 1866 and their relocation of the wooden church building there.⁵ By then, however, Stuart was already embroiled in scandal, as described below.

Miscellaneous

On January 31, 1866, the Telegraph reported that he had been fined by the Recorder’s court “for firing two shots from his pistol into the house of Mr. Stoppell.”

An H. Stewart appears as a teacher in the 1866 City Directory, which could be a misspelling of his name.

But also, Olivewood Cemetery records burial of a Rev. Henry Stewart (1832-1885) who founded Mt. Zion Baptist Church in 1866.

Freedmen’s Bureau Records

M822, Roll 10, Unregistered Letters Received.

January 1, 1866 - Letter to Wheelock requesting schoolbooks be sent by express mail.

January 17, 1866 - Letter to Wheelock reporting on his progress and his anxiousness to receive Wheelock’s sister when she arrives.

February 6, 1866 - Letter to Wheelock about teachers heading for Millican.

February 7, 1866 - Letter to Wheelock saying that he has “been informed by one of the colored teachers here that he is about to place his pupils under my charge.” He requests further assistance to support the increase and wishes to retain Miss Byrne as an assistant.

February 9, 1866 - Letter from Honey to Wheelock reports on four schools in Houston, the one taught by Stuart with 146 students, and three others taught by Black teachers: Ward Bonner, Henry Gray, and “Parson Aleck, as he is called, a colored man and Baptist Preacher [who] is in charge of a school in the Mt. Zion Church (Colored Baptist)” and refuses to let the house be used by a white teacher or to report to Stuart, and will not use any book “save the ‘old Webster spelling book.’”⁶ He plans to return and work on this, believing that a white teacher should be put in charge: “In the mean time Mr. Stuart says he will keep it as straight as possible.” A follow-up letter later that month repeats the same charges and adds another: which is that in Mr. Stuart’s school in Houston “I found the teachers were making a free use of the rod which I believe will have a bad influence both upon the schools of the state and also be used as a strong argument against the ‘Freedmens Bureau’ as in some instances the agents of the Bureau in calling others to an account for whipping children in their employ are confronted with this argument ‘Your own teachers do the same thing.’”

March 13, 1866 - Letter to Wheelock reporting on book supplies, assistants Harris, Watson and Byrne, plans to go help Mr. Brown start a plantation school and get some rest.

March 22, 1866 - Letter from Honey to Wheelock reports that “Miss Lizzie Clay is established in the Mt. Zion Church (col) at Houston Texas with a good prospect of raising a large school.” He also says that Stuart left for Fort Bend County with a freedwoman who was his pupil and left her in charge of a school there, returning by train without her. “The Female Teachers under him … complain of not being paid punctually.” Reports of a teacher placed on the Terry plantation at Sandy Point. Also refers to Chenango.

April 3, 1866 - Letter from Honey to Wheelock reports that Stuart is still teaching “but a few days ago he called the people (Freedmen) together & by telling them that he was going to stop his school worked upon their sympathies & they voted to urge him to stay.” He went to Ms. Clay’s school house, “called her out and told her that now she had commenced her school he would give her her choice. She might have the ‘Bureau’ for her friend or him but she could not have both” along with other threats. “He whips his children daily in school & declares he will do so, & says he defies Genl Gregory & the ‘Bureau’ to prevent him. I am told that he whipped one child so badly that the mother saw fit to take the child out of school.” The freedwoman whom he took to Brown’s plantation has returned and awaits further instruction. Honey intends to place Miss Watson at Chenango. “I shall call the ‘Freedmen’ together at the Baptist Church tonight & give Miss Clay all the assistance she may need.”

April 7, 1866 - Letter to Wheelock indicating that Stuart has offered his resignation as City Superintendent, but he has not heard a response back.

May 11, 1866 - Letter from Honey to Wheelock reports that Miss Byrne is unemployed and Stuart (who has started his own private school) is in her debt.

May 22, 1866 - Letter from Honey to Wheelock: “I find on enquiring that Mr. Stuart has reopened his school in this city in the Methodist Church (colored) and his and Misses Clay & Garrison’s schools have a Pic-Nic to-morrow.” (By end of the year Lizzie F. Clay has decided to leave and says it is useless to try to teach at Mt. Zion and says it is pointless to pay for rent and stove there.)

May 25, 1866 - Letter to Wheelock stating that he has been “informed, though in an unofficial manner, that it is the intention of the Bureau to stop me from teaching.” He discloses some apparent conflict with Mr. Honey over meddling in his school, which Stuart considered his own to run: “I had a perfect right to call it my own, and the Freedmen have a perfect right to send their children where they like.” He signs it “Barrister at Law, Middle Temple London.”

June 12, 1866 - Letter from Wheelock to Stuart responding to his May 25 rant.

June 19, 1866 - Letter to Wheelock responding to one received from him on the 18th (this one, written on the 12th), and explaining himself and dismissing the “charges” against him. More animosity towards Honey.

See this Byron Porter report, dated June 4, 1866, about schools in Houston, which notes “No buildings suitable for school houses can be obtained with the exception of churches erected by, and belonging to the colored people.”

July 7, 1866 - Letter from Watson to Wheelock - she has returned from Chenango due to poor health, and wishes instead to take charge of Stuart’s now vacant position.

July 20, 1866 - Letter from Watson to Wheelock outlining much the same as the next day’s letter from Porter. She later accepts a new position at Bastrop.

July 21, 1866 - Letter from Porter to Wheelock: “Since Mr. Stuart ran away Miss Watson has been teaching his school; that is to say the very small fragment of it that continued to attend. Before Stuart left, he collected the school fees for July and most of the people as I understand refused to send their children unless Miss Watson would teach the month out without fees. The trustees of the church in the mean time wanted twenty dollars rent for the month and expected her also to teach the remainder of the month for nothing. Which she of course refused to do. The consequence is that Miss Watson has only six or seven scholars but will probably have more next month. A Day or two ago the trustees of the church sent the sexton to Miss Watson to tell her that on Monday next a colored man by the name of Goodwin or Goodman would take the school and of course she must vacate. On learning this I told Miss Watson to keep on and sent word to the trustees that Miss Watson should not be interfered with as she was teaching the school by your order and that she would hold possession of the building until you could be heard from. … It seems to me that school matters in this place want regulating and I wish you would come up. I think some measures should be taken to prevent incompetent white or black persons from starting schools whenever and wherever they please to the detriment and disadvantage of the regularly established schools. Another fact which I wish to point out is the disposition of the people to charge rents and high ones for the use of their churches as schools. They expect the teachers to devote a part of their time on Sundays to carrying on their Sunday schools but charge them as high a rent as they can possibly squeeze out of them.” He worries that the proliferation of other schools will tank enrollment at the larger established schools, making it impossible for them to take in enough tuition to afford such rents. See also an August 7, 1866 follow up saying that “two of the trustees of the church have just been in to see me about the church” and rent, and another one on August 29 about a silver watch Watson borrowed from a freedman and broke.